 Welcome back everybody. We have our next sponsor message from the assistant dean of the Virginia Tech Graduate School. It's my pleasure to introduce Janice Austin. So please, Janice, I'll give you the floor. Thank you. Virginia Tech is pleased to be a support for the U.S. ETDA 2021 conference. Virginia Tech has been a world leader in electronic theses and dissertation initiatives for more than 20 years. On January 1, 1997, Virginia Tech was the first university to require electronic submission of theses and dissertations. In order to prepare for these remarks, Dean Supernaught looked at the literature on electronic theses and dissertations. A paper in Libraries and the Academy by Yale Feynman stated that although these dissertations and theses were incredibly valuable for researchers, the vast majority of these works languish in obscurity in college and university libraries and archives. The best way to bring this original research to light is to publish it electronically and to give students and researchers free and open access to these documents via the World Wide Web. The concept of electronic theses and dissertations is gaining momentum on college and university campuses worldwide. As faculty, administrators, graduate students and librarians realize the value of making this information more accessible. Although these remarks may seem to have come from the 1960s, in reality this essay was written in 2003. How far we have come in such a short period of time. The history of electronic theses and dissertations begins in 1987 with a meeting involving participants from Virginia Tech, the University of Michigan and two fledgling software companies, Arbor Text and Soft Quad. In 1992, Virginia Tech joined with the Coalition for Network Information, the Council of Grad Schools, and UMI to host a meeting with 10 other universities that had documented the interest of their graduate schools and library or information technology groups. This meeting demonstrated the strong interest in and feasibility of ETD activities among U.S. and Canadian universities. In 1994, Virginia Tech, as part of a pilot project, began to convert some of these printed theses and dissertations into PDF. Then on January 1, 1997, Virginia Tech required electronic submission of theses and dissertations and was the first university to do so. Thus, Virginia Tech has been a worldwide leader in electronic theses and dissertation initiatives for more than 20 years. Today, students can submit not only their written document but are encouraged to append digital media such as images, data, audio and video as well. Thanks again for the invitation and please enjoy the conference. Thank you so much, Amy. I mean, excuse me, thank you so much, Janice, standing in for Amy, superintendent. So we have about a five minute break here. We're going to jump back in at 4.50 p.m. with some breakout sessions. And we have a special breakout session, an open networking session. You can click on the networking icon or click on the sessions. And so enjoy the rest of the conference. Thanks.